Nick Hornby novels suffer the same film adaptation disease that afflicts John Grisham’s legal thrillers. 2000’s High Fidelity was a wonderful American take on the British novel about a pop music obsessed loser in love. From there, the adaptations of his novels decreased in quality with About A Boy and Fever Pitch. The same may be said for John Grisham. The Firm and The Pelican Brief kicked off Grisham film mania in 1993 and finally hit bottom in 1996 with The Chamber. You don’t see too many Grisham film adaptations anymore. There was a brief revival about 10 years ago with The Runaway Jury but 2004’s Christmas with the Kranks appears to have sole credit for the absence of Grisham stories from the big screen for that past 10 years. Shrugging off the Grisham warning, a lesser Nick Hornby novel, 2005’s A Long Way Down, finds its way to the big screen with a cast known for some serious acting chops. However, no amount of believable and earnest portrayals can save A Long Way Down from its fatal flaw; it is about a disparate group of failed suicide attempters who form an unlikely bond bound together with sarcasm, manipulations, and what some consider comedy.

Most detractors dislike the macabre setting that initially binds the foursome. They all coincidentally show up together at the same time at the same tall building to jump off the top of it on New Year’s Eve. I consider that an almost witty, yet dark, meet cute. My grievance is the film fails to take such an interesting lead-in anywhere interesting. Nobody jumps and the foursome makes a half-hearted pact to stay alive, at least until Valentine’s Day. From there, we follow them individually and learn their mostly sad sack, but far from truly suicidal, stories.

The group’s ringleader is Martin Sharp (Pierce Brosnan, 2013’s The World’s End). Martin was a famous TV personality with his own morning show before he made the mistake of assuming the girl was 25 instead of her real 17. Divorced, humiliated, and robbed of all of his children, money, good fortune, and good name, Martin has an ok reason to be at the top of the building but that does not seem like the most likely way out for a man as consumed with fame as he is. Martin’s rasion d’etre seems to be to fund the group’s travels and spearhead their silly attempt to cash in on their notoriety when the pact becomes public.

Flighty and annoying Jess (Imogen Poots, 2014’s That Awkward Moment) thinks she has too many reasons to take the plunge. She was understandably just dumped by a boy and has some major unresolved issues with the disappearance of her sister two years ago. Her main occupation is embarrassing her politician father and carrying on as the film’s most unappealing character. Most of her problems could be solved with a firm kick in the butt.

At least the audience can quantify Jess’s motivations. Poor J.J. (Aaron Paul, 2014’s Need for Speed) has no idea why he wants to kill himself. He may be the group’s only true case of severe depression. As the token American, J.J. has been in a series of failed bands, toils away at menial jobs, and inexplicably does not know why he wants to die; he just does.

Finally, the most interesting and certainly the only character with any amount of depth is Maureen (Toni Collette, 2012’s Hitchcock). Maureen takes care of her invalid son from sun up to sun down with nary a break. There are no gentlemen in her life and perhaps it is the grueling routine with her son breaking her spirit. Toni Collette singlehandedly gives the film’s best performance as she explains she does not want to die because of how hard her son makes her life or that she is abandoning him, but the heavy weight she feels of hopelessness has led her to this decision.

Thank goodness for Maureen; otherwise, there would be very few attractive qualities lurking in this group. We may care a little bit whether or not they choose to end it, but it is actually only feelings for Maureen. Director Pascal Chaumeil chose to focus far too much on the comedy half of the story’s comedy/drama genre billing. I suppose there are laughs to be had at the sheer absurdity of so many people winding up at the same time and place to off themselves, but honestly, we all recognize it is more plot device than anything else.

We are supposed to care about the foursome; we are supposed to root for them and want them to make good choices and to live. If we laugh on the way to that end then fair enough. Yet, A Long Way Down’s fatal flaw is we cannot care about such shallow, one-sided characters. I neither laughed with or at them; I cringed. I have read all of Nick Hornby’s novels and I really hope filmmakers stay away from the rest of his canon; maybe try another Grisham instead next time.